Jax Dwyer
THE CLIENT
A consumer finance app entering a crowded market
The client runs a platform built around the way younger consumers actually want to learn about investing: by doing it with no money on the line.
The core product lets users practice real trading decisions in a live market environment, with the kind of social layer that makes it feel more like a game than a brokerage account. The team had spent time getting the product right before turning attention to growth, which meant they were starting their marketing efforts from a clean slate.
THE CHALLENGE
Validating acquisition before committing to paid spend
Paid media was on the roadmap, but the team wanted to earn their way there. Before putting serious budget behind ads, they needed to know whether their product could convert cold traffic into real signups at a cost that made the math work.
They also wanted content assets they could eventually use in paid campaigns rather than paying for content and media separately.
THE APPROACH
Performance-based creators targeting the finance and side-hustle audience
Cult Media put together a network of commission-only creators whose audiences skewed toward personal finance, investing education, and side income content. That audience fit mattered because people in those niches are already primed to pay attention to anything that looks like a better way to build financial knowledge. The product dropped naturally into that conversation without feeling like an ad.
Creators were briefed on 3-4 viral formats that Cult Media had validated across similar campaigns, and coached weekly on what was gaining traction.
Below are examples of top-performing posts; each included a product demo.
For example, the hook captured attention, and then tranitioned to a product demo that conveyed all product benefits, while remaining entertaining.
This meant every viewer actually saw the platform in action and understood its benefits: this is the highest-converting format there is.
June 2026 - Top Performing Posts; All high-converting formats that provided a product demo.
CAMPAIGN RESULTS
Campaign 1 numbers
Below are results from Campaign 1. It's important to note that every campaign differs, as it is dependent on a project's ability to onboard users. However, campaigns in general tend to see a ~0.1% conversion rate minimum, and the users are the perfect way to A/B test and optimize one's funnel.
3.8M Total views | 170K Website visits | 42,500 Signups | 25% Visit-to-signup rate |
Daily registrations, June 26 - July 9 (Client-side data)
The bigger picture
What this campaign built was not just traffic and signups. After a month of volume testing across dozens of creator accounts, the client walked away with a library of proven video content, real data on which hooks and formats actually converted, and full media rights to all of it.
That matters because ad fatigue is quietly one of the most expensive problems in paid media right now. The average creative loses meaningful performance within a few weeks, and brands that cannot refresh their library fast enough watch CAC climb while ROAS erodes. A pool of 500 to 1,000 tested organic videos solves that problem before it starts: enough variety to rotate continuously, with organic proof of resonance before any paid dollar goes behind it.
When this client moves into paid, they will not be guessing which angle works.
Why it worked
Finance content pulls unusually well on short-form video because the audience is looking for it, not being interrupted by it. That made the brief straightforward: put the product in front of people already in the investing mindset and let it speak for itself, rather than engineering urgency that was not there.
The commission-only structure kept the campaign honest. Creators who found formats that converted kept posting and earned well. Those who did not stopped earning and naturally fell away, so the budget concentrated itself around what was actually working without any manual intervention to force it.
